My photo of the advent calandar - Day 1

As we start to move towards Christmas and another new year, it is a good opportunity to review my photographic year.

I think this year I have taken more photos than any other. Whether my quality has improved or not I will leave others to judge, but it I certainly feel the breadth has increased.

I am also aware that my blogging has tailed off. This is a consequence of the number of photos I have taken and while I have started a number of blogs, the time and effort to complete them has meant that few have been published.

To compensate for this I am going to put one picture a day on till Christmas. A photo advent calendar.

These photos are not necessarily  my best, or the work which I have had the most success. Instead they are the  photos which mean something to me. Either on a personal level, something I learned, or maybe something I wish I had done better.

So lets begin

Sheffield Bandstand

One of the fun things I did last year was taking my eldest daughter around for interviews at various universities. It meant traveling as far afield a Lancaster  and Southampton. Of course while she went off to be grilled I was left with how to amuse myself, so naturally I took my camera.

One of my favorite image taken that day was the Art tower in Sheffield. When I took it I had not realized it was a iconic building, but it is probably the best architectural picture I took and love the converging lines, plus the low cloud of the day means it height is hidden and could go on forever, like some giant spaceship.

However the image that stood out for me was the one above of the this one was taken on cold frosty day in Weston Park, Sheffield and the bandstand. Over the year I have been more interested in abstract images and was much taken by the work of Pep Ventosa

The technique is to move round the object taking a number of shots and blending them in via photoshop, This image is about 20 shots, blended in PS. Apart from the ethereal quality, I love the fact its 360 degree location is recorded. The object almost appears to be alive and vibrating in time and space.

 It also  speaks to my other fascination of how photography can play and represent time and space, something that has always fascinated me and I love to play with.